home | O'Reilly's CD bookshelfs | FreeBSD | Linux | Cisco | Cisco Exam  


B.2 Standard Modules

The following is a list of all Perl pragmas and modules included with the current Perl distribution (version 5.004). Modules new to 5.004 are italicized . The classification of the modules is admittedly arbitrary, and not all of them are applicable to Windows NT systems.

B.2.1 General Programming: Miscellaneous

autouse

Defers loading of a module until it's used

constant

Creates compile-time constants

Benchmark

Checks and compares running times of code

Config

Accesses Perl configuration information

Env

Imports environment variables

English

Uses English or awk names for punctuation variables

FindBin

Finds path of currently executing program

Getopt::Long

Provides extended processing of command-line options

Getopt::Std

Processes single-character switches with switch clustering

lib

Manipulates @INC at compile time

Shell

Runs shell commands transparently within Perl

strict

Restricts unsafe constructs

Symbol

Generates anonymous globs; qualifies variable names

subs

Predeclares subroutine names

vars

Predeclares global variable names

B.2.2 General Programming: Error Handling and Logging

Carp

Generates error messages

diagnostics

Forces verbose warning diagnostics

sigtrap

Enables stack backtrace on unexpected signals

Sys::Syslog

Provides Perl interface to UNIX syslog (3) calls

B.2.3 General Programming: File Access and Handling

Cwd

Gets pathname of current working directory

DirHandle

Supplies object methods for directory handles

Fcntl

Loads the C Fcntl.h defines

File::Basename

Parses file specifications

File::CheckTree

Runs many tests on a collection of files

File::Copy

Copies files or filehandles

File::Find

Traverses a file tree

File::Path

Creates or removes a series of directories

FileCache

Keeps more files open than the system permits

FileHandle

Supplies object methods for filehandles

SelectSaver

Saves and restores selected filehandles

B.2.4 General Programming: Classes for I/O Operations

IO

Top-level interface to IO::* classes

IO::File

Object methods for filehandles

IO::Handle

Object methods for I/O handles

IO::Pipe

Object methods for pipes

IO::Seekable

Seek-based methods for I/O objects

IO::Select

Object interface to select

IO::Socket

Object interface to sockets

B.2.5 General Programming: Text Processing and Screen Interfaces

locale

Uses POSIX locales for built-in operations

Pod::HTML

Converts POD data to HTML

Pod::Text

Converts POD data to formatted ASCII text

Search::Dict

Searches for key in dictionary file

Term::Cap

Interfaces termcap

Term::Complete

Word-completion module

Text::Abbrev

Creates an abbreviation table from a list

Text::ParseWords

Parses text into an array of tokens

Text::Soundex

Implements the Soundex Algorithm described by Knuth

Text::Tabs

Expands and unexpands tabs

Text::Wrap

Wraps text into a paragraph

B.2.6 Database Interfaces

AnyDBM_File

Provides framework for multiple DBMs

DB_File

Provides access to Berkeley DB

GDBM_File

Provides tied access to GDBM library

NDBM_File

Provides tied access to NDBM files

ODBM_File

Provides tied access to ODBM files

SDBM_File

Provides tied access to SDBM files

B.2.7 Mathematics

Integer

Does integer arithmetic instead of double precision

Math::BigFloat

Provides arbitrary-length, floating-point math package

Math::BigInt

Provides arbitrary-length integer math package

Math::Complex

Provides complex numbers package

B.2.8 The World Wide Web

CGI

Interfaces web server (Common Gateway Interface)

CGI::Apache

Supports Apache's Perl module

CGI::Carp

Details log server errors with helpful context

CGI::Fast

Supports FastCGI (persistent server process)

CGI::Push

Supports server push

CGI::Switch

Provides simple interface for multiple server types

B.2.9 Networking and Interprocess Communication

IPC::Open2

Opens a process for both reading and writing

IPC::Open3

Opens a process for reading, writing, and error handling

Net::Ping

Checks whether a host is online

Socket

Loads the C socket.h defines and structure manipulators

Sys::Hostname

Tries every conceivable way to get hostname

B.2.10 Automated Access to the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network

CPAN

Provides simple interface to CPAN

CPAN::FirstTime

Provides utility for creating CPAN configuration file

CPAN::Nox

Runs CPAN while avoiding compiled extensions

B.2.11 Time and Locale

Time::Local

Efficiently computes time from local and GMT time

I18N::Collate

Compares 8-bit scalar data according to the current locale

B.2.12 Object Interfaces to Built-in Functions

Class::Struct

Declares struct-like datatypes as Perl classes

File::stat

Provides object interface to stat function

Net::hostent

Provides object interface to gethost* functions

Net::netent

Provides object interface to getnet* functions

Net::protoent

Provides object interface to getproto* functions

Net::servent

Provides object interface to getserv* functions

Time::gmtime

Provides object interface to gmtime function

Time::localtime

Provides object interface to localtime function

Time::tm

Provides internal object for Time::{gm,local}time

User::grent

Provides object interface to getgr* functions

User::pwent

Provides object interface to getpw* functions

B.2.13 For Developers: Autoloading and Dynamic Loading

AutoLoader

Loads functions only on demand

AutoSplit

Splits a package for autoloading

Devel::SelfStubber

Generates stubs for a SelfLoading module

DynaLoader

Provides automatic dynamic loading of Perl modules

SelfLoader

Loads functions only on demand

B.2.14 For Developers: Language Extensions and Platform Development Support

blib

Finds blib directory structure during module builds

ExtUtils::Embed

Provides utilities for embedding Perl in C programs

ExtUtils::Install

Installs files from here to there

ExtUtils::Liblist

Determines libraries to use and how to use them

ExtUtils::MakeMaker

Creates a Makefile for a Perl extension

ExtUtils::Manifest

Provides utilities to write and check a MANIFEST file

ExtUtils::Miniperl

Writes the C code for perlmain.c

ExtUtils::Mkbootstrap

Makes a bootstrap file for use by DynaLoader

ExtUtils::Mksymlists

Writes linker-option files for dynamic extension

ExtUtils::MM_OS2

Provides methods to override UNIX behavior in ExtUtils::MakeMaker

ExtUtils::MM_Unix

Provides methods used by ExtUtils::MakeMaker

ExtUtils::MM_VMS

Provides methods to override UNIX behavior in ExtUtils::MakeMaker

ExtUtils::testlib

Fixes @INC to use just-built extension

Opcode

Disables opcodes when compiling Perl code

ops

Provides pragma for use with Opcode module

POSIX

Interfaces to IEEE Std 1003.1

Safe

Creates safe namespaces for evaluating Perl code

Test::Harness

Runs Perl standard test scripts with statistics

vmsish

Enables VMS-specific features

B.2.15 For Developers: Object-Oriented Programming Support

Exporter

Provides default import method for modules

overload

Overloads Perl's mathematical operations

Tie::RefHash

Provides base-class definitions for tied hashes with references as keys

Tie::Hash

Provides base-class definitions for tied hashes

Tie::Scalar

Provides base-class definitions for tied scalars

Tie::StdHash

Provides base-class definitions for tied hashes

Tie::StdScalar

Provides base-class definitions for tied scalars

Tie::SubstrHash

Provides fixed-table-size, fixed-key-length hashing

UNIVERSAL

Provides base-class definitions for all classes